co-ordinate the fiscal policies of member states. Under the SGP, member states report their economic plans to the European Commission and explain how they are to achieve medium-term budgetary objectives. Then the Commission evaluates these plans and the report is sent to the Economic and Financial Committee for comments. Finally, the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers decides by qualified majority whether to accept the Commission's recommendation to the member state or to rewrite the text. However, under the SGP, no countries have ever been fined for not meeting the objectives and the effort to punish France and Germany in 2003 was not fulfilled. Therefore, after the Eurozone crisis, some people in Europe felt the need for a new union with more powerful fiscal influence among member states. On 2 March 2012, all members of the European Union, except the Czech Republic (who joined later) and the United Kingdom, signed the European Fiscal Compact, which was ratified on 1 April 2014. The treaty is designed to implement stricter caps on government spending and borrowing, including automatic sanctions for countries breaking the rules. The results of the treaty on the Eurozone economy, are yet to be known. With the crisis of the euro area deepening, more and more attention has been put by scholars on completing the fiscal side of the monetary union. Marzinotto, Sapir and Guntram Wolff (2011), for example, were among the first to call for proper fiscal resources at the federal level that would allow to stabilize the financial system and if necessary help individual countries (What kind of fiscal union?). Advantages of fiscal union A common currency and standard interest rate are difficult to manage without a fiscal union that provides similar borrowing costs. The European debt crisis demonstrated that monetary union cannot function well without fiscal union. The macro-economic imbalances cannot be managed without a standard federal structure that organises spending and revenue collection in the Eurozone. Otherwise, asymmetric shocks will affect the stability of the euro. Thus, the combination of national fiscal policy with the European monetary system is unsustainable. A fiscal union under proper democratic control run by a European Union finance ministry would provide the Union with stability and strength, sharing credit risk through the imposition of strict fiscal policy. In the view of some economists, European fiscal union with strong institutions would be able to manage the EU economy as a whole